Recent Discoveries of Tarentine Terra-Cottas

There are few sites in the Hellenic World that in recent years have been so prolific of discoveries as that of Tarentum. The scheme so earnestly taken up by the Italian Government for converting the half-forgotten nest of fishermen and olive proprietors into a great Mediterranean arsenal, bids fair to restore Taranto to some measure at least of the importance which her unique position secured to her in ancient days. The mediæval citys hut up within the limits of its peninsular site, the Akropolis of the ancient Tarentum, blocking the passage from the inner to the outer sea, is again enlarging its borders, and a new quarter—the Borgo Nuovo—is rising on the mainland to the east where lay the Agora of the great Doric city. The inner sea—the Mar Piccolo—the Limên of Tarentum, at present laid out in gardens for the ‘sea-fruit’ which supplies the Naples market, is already being deepened in its south-eastern bay to form a secure and unassailable harbour, and the leviathans of the new Italian navy will henceforth anchor in the same historic port whence Hannibal transferred the Tarentine galleys adry to the outer sea.